How Wrong Are You Prepared To Be?

"Exhausting someone with an argument is not the same as convincing them" Tim Kreider

Back in 1995 I was getting ready for my first Christmas as a manager in retail. Christmas is vital to a retailer's performance. Get it right and it can make all the difference to your annual numbers, get it wrong and...well...you know.

One of the keys to getting Christmas right is having those items in stock that everyone wants to buy. To help, the Regional Director would circulate his list of "must have" items in August, and then lord help you if you ran out of them before the big day. Believe it or not, one of the items was swiss roll. More "experienced" retail colleagues reading this will know why, but for the uninitiated in some parts of the country trifles are really popular therefore having the right swiss roll is vital. I'd ordered a whole pallet of them, and when my Regional Director visited the store I was sure to highlight the amazing job I had done by striding proudly up to the pallet in the foyer.

I'm pretty sure that you have heard the story about frogs and pots of water. The story is that if you drop a frog into a boiling pot of water it will leap straight out. But if you drop the frog into lukewarm water and gradually raise the temperature the frog will die. The analogy goes that the frog lacks the ability to rethink the situation and doesn't realise the problem until it's too late.

The problem with the story is that it's completely wrong.

Tossed into a scalding pot the frog will get burned very badly and is very unlikely to escape. The frog is much better off in the pot that is gradually heating up and will leap out as soon as the water gets uncomfortably warm.

A colleague bought me an excellent book to wish me well as I leave my current role, Think Again by Adam Grant. It's the best book that I have read so far this year because it challenged so much of my thinking. I love books that surprise me. Books that contain insight that is different to the norm.

This cartoon in the book made me chuckle

As I mentioned on my Coach class podcast with Dom Burch this week, I have worked really hard at making mistakes and talking more about them. We live in an increasingly divided world, where mentioning which way you voted in a referendum can end friendships. Where mentioning that you supported a political party gets you de-friended on social media. Where saying that you may have vaccine hesitancy leads to righteous indignation. Being able to disagree respectfully, debate and discuss with tolerance is just so vital. Publicly admitting mistakes and publicly changing your mind are the best antidotes in our divided world.

The internet has brought many brilliant benefits but one of the challenges is the temptation to surround yourself with an echo chamber. People find conflict difficult, so surrounding yourself with people that think just like you can be really tempting. The issue is that you then become part of the problem not part of the solution. Finding ways to disagree without being disagreeable are just so important.

Letting go of knowledge and opinions that are no longer serving you well is crucial for personal development, but so many people struggle to do it.

Back in 1995 as I strode proudly up to the pallet of swiss roll my Regional Director put his arm supportively around me. "Rob" he said "Do you know why the pallet is still full?" "No" I replied. "I was sure that they would be selling like hot cakes by now". "I am sure they would have been if you had ordered raspberry flavour, but you ordered strawberry. No-one uses strawberry".

I learned that day. Confidence matters, but humility matters a great deal more.